After a massive air strike, coalition ground forces invaded Iraq. By mid-April, Saddam Hussein's army and government had collapsed.

Public opinion has not always favored a standing army. During the undeclared conflict with France in 1798, the size of the U.S. Army was raised from 3,500 to 12,000 men. Jeffersonian Republicans feared that the army would be used to enforce the Alien and Sedition Acts. Popular opinion was expressed in many resolutions against the increased army.

By 1799, the immediate threat of war had passed but the large standing army remained. Alexander Hamilton wrote to Harrison Gray Otis, a Federalist member of Congress from Massachusetts, arguing that the army could still be used productively by conquering lands then held by the French and Spanish in the West.